Saturday, November 22, 2008

I was playing around with a cuttle bug background and decided to brayer it onto another piece of paper. Here are the two cards I produced from the one background.

I started with a larger piece of the cuttlebug embossed background which you can see behind the sentiment.

The background behind the butterflies is a stamped image of the cuttlebug folder. I have been playing around with this and if I get my other pieces onto a card I will share them. The cuttlebug embossing folders with the more solid images give a prettier stamped image. They never come out crisp so you have to be willing to enjoy a more batik/watercolor like impression.

Recipe for the backgrounds:

Emboss a sheet of watercolor paper using the cuttlebug embossing folder. The sheet in my background was 4 1/2" x 8". I embossed from both directions.

Sponge multiple colors on the embossing.

Spritz the embossed and inked watercolor paper until it is moist. If it is too moist your image will smear and be a blob of color.

Lay a piece of white cardstock on the embossed image. Brayer the white paper on the embossing. Lift the paper off and you should have an inked image similar to the embossed image.

You have 2 backgrounds to use on your cards.

The watercolor image will be very faint. On my background I used versamark all over the watercolor background and heat embossed using clear embossing powder. This will give the background a glazed appearance and it will increase the intensity of the colors.

Other tips for Card # 1:

The stamped leaves are inked with the green and blue ink. Start with the lighter color and ink the entire image. Using the darker color randomly dab on the inked stamp.

Stamp the inked leaves onto the cardstock and stamp again for lighter images.

Other tips for Card # 2:

Butterflies were made from glimmer mist mix of red and yellow. They were die cut from Spellbinders Dies. They were stamped with StazOn Royal Purple and they were covered in clear embossing powder as well.

The flowers and the sentiment were stamped over the clear embossing using StazOn Royal Purple.

I was so busy worrying about getting a closer look that I completely for got to tellyou how wonderful both cards are. Love the technique. If you emboss a piece of acetate and then brayer the acetate and then turn it over, wet side down and then brayer over that you get anohter interesting background! Great with the Snowflake folder.